


Any Other Present

by Anonymous



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Angst, Captivity, I mean that in the way of them being more classical gods now ig, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Non-Linear Narrative, Zags a formal god
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 07:26:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29096484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: He vowed to seal that accursed temple to anyone but himself and Zagreus once they were freed.If they were freed.
Relationships: Thanatos & Zagreus (Hades Video Game), Thanatos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 69
Collections: Anonymous





	Any Other Present

Thanatos supposed it would have been poetic in any other context – death in chains and life beaten bloody on the floor.

No end to the suffering of today with no one to cart you off tomorrow.

The entire spectrum of the soul held captive to one man’s whims and pleasure in a dingy stone tower.

This was a joke. A miserable, cruel joke.

\-------

It was back when they were young when Zagreus began to show his power, meager as it was at the time. Back when they were but a few eons old, and their roles in the world were to run about the halls of the House and stay out from underfoot and discover the forms they would one day show mortals.

Zagreus had always been an active godling, flitting the halls and begging Master Achilles for more exercises to take him away from parchmentwork and racing on Cerberus’s heels when they played with Megaera and her sisters.

There were times still then where it seemed physically impossible for him to settle, even on threat of punishment. Times when he panted for breath and radiated heat and was flushed and dizzy from fever yet tried to run it off like it fueled him.

The first time it happened, Lord Hades had locked him in his room, and when they retrieved him the next day, they had found him peacefully asleep in a bed sodden with bright red blood, streaks of it dried down his chin and across his cheeks where he had cried and vomited down his front.

They had taken his door away after that, and Nyx and Charon began taking him on special trips to the Phlegethon with strict regularity on orders from the house physician. Everyone else save for the Lord had been forbidden to accompany them.

\-------

Thanatos came to again with the creak of the wooden door being pushed open.

The priest was back, ever still in their white and gold robes with a basket of herbs to shove between Zagreus’s lips and a pot of smoke to blow into his lungs.

‘To hide his godhood’ is what had been explained to him in the stilted syllables of the mortals tongue. What about his godhood in particular, had never been mentioned.

Some nights, he prayed to his mother’s moon that it wasn’t his very divinity – the part of him that the underworld had always called to – the part that dragged him so painfully back home every time he approached the surface, so that he at least could be found.

When Helios dragged the sun back above the horizon, he prayed to no one in particular that it was, so that he wouldn’t have to face the torment of the growing piles of souls screaming at him to let them be born, as Thanatos was by the souls begging him to take them away.

\-------

The increasing frequency of escape attempts from the underworld soon took the place of the trips, not that anyone would express pleasure at the insinuation that Zagreus’s violent deaths were a suitable cure for the burden of his birthright.

If the queen felt any ire toward the method that had been traditionalized to aid her son, or if she knew even that he was ailing even in the underworld and that what had become his job was designed to help him cope with it, she never let on.

\-------

Every third sunrise, the herbs and smoke and gallantry were abandoned and a fine porcelain basin was brought in by a pair of guards, and Zagreus’s throat and wrists were reopened.

\-------

They shared a temple.

It was a small thing – nothing like the monuments dedicated to the Olympians or even to Hypnos or to some of the Titans – but it was theirs.

(The mortals could be so silly sometimes – in fear of divorcing the domains of life and death even in worship, yet hesitant to begin and be apparent about the practice in the first place)

Zagreus had a look of pure wonder on his face as he ran his hands over the smooth marble and limestone walls, so different than the granite and brimstone of his home; as he stood in freedom for hours at the entrance watching the world of the surface exist onward, realizing that he _could_ now that the temple as a sort of twining of the underworld and of the mortal plane he longed for; as he took in the incomplete blanks of their statues, which stood against opposite walls with a single altar between them.

They had defiled that altar after night had set on that first visit and they were sure they would not have visitors.

They had defiled it several occasions after that, too, with much less discretion.

\-------

He felt rage fill his veins as Zagreus rested against his side that night, having dragged himself over with the last of his strength so they could lie together despite Thanatos’s immobility.

His skin was cool.

Zagreus quite literally pulsed with life, the red blood thrumming in his veins a siren song of warmth to his own golden ichor, bare skin rarely less than scorching against his own.

Zagreus was never _cool_ , not even since the beginning of their captivity.

They were bleeding him dry, not giving him time to rest, taking too much for what?

Their own greed?

Their vile consumption?

Their need to watch their own empire, their neighbors, their very world be torn apart thread by thread while they reaped whatever they desired?

He overheard the guards by their door talking late some night, about the parties the emperor and empress would call upon their favorite advisors and allies and friends and servants and gift them thick, red wine of a kind no one had ever seen before that granted youth and vitality, about the luxury baths they would call for every third day that required the tubs be scrubbed for hours after to remove the stains soaked into the stone.

He vowed to seal that accursed temple to anyone but himself and Zagreus once they were freed.

If they were freed.

\-------

Witnessing Zagreus grow into his godliness with the erection of the temple and take Thanatos with him was a thing of pride at the House, even if Hades sometimes still grumbled about how the two were now somehow causing him even _more_ paperwork.

They didn’t often reveal their mortal forms to the patrons of their temple, and rarer still did they grant true audiences for requests.

It wasn’t that they were picky about offerings – quite the opposite in fact. Zagreus seemed endlessly interested by the various things that people thought to bring them, ranging from flowers and little trinkets from all over to piles of wealth and finery and live sacrifices.

Thanatos and the other members of the house were simply amused at what humans apparently though would be good or relevant things to gift them, as if Chthonic gods ad penchants for making demands of them at all.

It was more than the two of them more than any others were bound by the Fates in what were their duties and rights as the gods of life and death. Boons and blessings made of woven blood and magic had rules attached.

They were not allowed to sacrifice their roles in the way of the universe to grant favors to individuals.

That had been the justification Zagreus gave him when insisting they at least see what could be done when a man and a woman in peasant’s clothes fell to their knees before the dais and begged them to undo the curse upon their kingdom, to give them something to restore the order and let the young be born true and the old die in peace.

\-------

They should never have left the temple.

He should have forced himself and Zagreus back when he realized the latter’s health wasn’t deteriorating as they traveled outside of its grounds.

\-------

Someone had to notice they were gone, right?

Ares of all gods had been the one to find him after his mistake with Sisyphus, but now _both_ of them were gone from their stations.

Someone was looking for them, right?

\-------

…right?

**Author's Note:**

> This is like 90% brain ramble so sorry if it's kinda wack lmao


End file.
